what stars are made of
by howlsatthemoon
Summary: Makes me love him with every single atom in this fragile earthling body. / Things that Lily remembers.


_Disclaimer: I own nothing_.

This was meant to be sort of a character study of the person I see in my head as Lily Luna Potter, but really I don't know what it turned out to be. But this was inspired by the poetry of Rudy Francisco! The man's amazing.

**Title**: what stars are made of.**  
>Prompts: <strong>Endless summer. Kite. Snow. Push. Talent.  
><strong>Prompt-giver<strong>: Anonymous.

X

**what stars are made of**

"Your voice is the sound that I've been looking for my entire life."  
>-Rudy Francisco<p>

x

My name is Lily. I am nineteen years old. I have red hair and hazel eyes and freckles all across my nose and a father who's famous just for being alive. Sometimes I feel this push, trying to get me to surpass the accomplishments of this whirlwind family I was born into. Sometimes I wonder why I even walk on this Earth. Sometimes I wonder why I even get up in the morning.

My name is Lily. I am nineteen years old. I have red hair and hazel eyes. I'm in love with the same boy I've known since I was zero and he was nine.

He's probably a man. I should probably say 'man'. But he'll always be that boy with the scared gold eyes and eternity-blue hair that holds my hand but never gets sweaty and pushes me into lakes but always jumps in after me and jumps out behind corners to surprise me but laughs with me not at me and makes me love him with every single atom in this fragile earthling body but won't let his lips linger over mine like the kind of glowing aura about the world as the sun goes down.

I don't know when or why I fell in love with him. There were no backing tracks of a hundred violins reaching the climax of a sonata or an unpredicted coincidental showering of fiery meteors to signal the achievement of the change of an entire life. It was just one day, he was Teddy, and the next he was the stars and the sky and the moon and what made my eyes shine and what made my breath catch and what made my throat dry and everything else that causes me this inscrutable pain that I'd never give for anything considered valuable on this corrupt land.

Things that I remember. I remember when I was nine years old and I climbed onto the damp, snow-covered roof. There's something about rooftops that attract people. Maybe it's the feeling of being the tallest thing for miles. Maybe it's the notion that you're so close you could touch the sky people, and they'd wrap their fingers around yours and take you to worlds you've never been. But my feet had slipped that day, and I fell — do you know that feeling? That split second when you know that you're going to get hurt but you're still too in shock to be scared. And then you hit the ground — _splat _— and it all comes rushing through. But that split second there's nothing but the rush of adrenaline through your unsuspecting veins.

Teddy's the one who came first when he heard my yells. He's the one who held my hand as Dad healed my shattered arm, and brought me steaming mugs of milky hot chocolate and watched the dumb Muggle cartoons on the telly for the whole afternoon, and then pointed out which stars are which until I fell asleep on his lap, dreaming of his hands reaching into the sky and pulling out my favourite stars and handing them to me, like promises. _That_'s love. _That_'s when I knew.

Another thing I remember. Flying kites in the spring when I was thirteen. My only talent — helping those rhombi made of rice paper and tree branches and sharp blue string and tails made of ribbons I'd put in my hair later reach the endless sky. The sharp contrast of colours and the blending of vibrancy, the sweat on the back of my neck as the never-ending sunlight poured onto us both, washing out my freckles and making my hair shine and the way his eyes would turn different colours as we fell into the tall strands of grass, dizzy and out-of-breath and the world so close yet so far away, like the stars in the afternoon or the blurry image of Venus during summer nights, untouchable yet seemingly so much closer, though not as close as I'd like. I think I'd like to chase the stars across the Milky Way, and capture a moon and place it in my pocket if only for a day, if only it would make him think of me.

He would hold my hand that day — steady it as the kite wavered in the midst of the breeze, and tell me when to tug and when to let go and let the feather-light material float away. He wouldn't mind when my lungs felt like they'd burst and we'd run, run, run, hand-in-hand across the infinite meadows until the end of the Earth seemed so close. _That's _when I fell in love, at thirteen years old, next to the eternity of dandelions, carrying wishes on their backs.

There's another memory. Endless summer at seventeen years old, all grown up and world weary and ready to turn eighteen at the next month, ready to lose that last bout of childhood innocence and discover the real world. That's the year I first tasted his kiss — the year he finally let go of his inhibitions and let me. He held my hand and made me laugh and he tasted — he tasted of passion fruit punch and nostalgia, of childhood and adulthood. He tasted like the colour spectrum. He tasted like the elements that make up stars. He tasted like faraway worlds. He tasted like tea and banana bread and spaghetti sauce and it was the best taste I'd ever known.

And I've known him since the second I was born and still I don't remember the exact formula of primary colours that make up the colour of his hair when I first kissed him. I could spend my moments counting the seconds that pass in-between as each strands morphs into a new shade. I could spend my life tracing the indents of his palms and convincing myself that I feel nothing — nothing — nothing. I am a liar. It's nothing new nor is it nothing special.

The thing that I've realised is that it doesn't matter — the way we looked when we danced, or how fast we can sprint through a valley. It doesn't matter the hour or minute or second we fell in love because you cannot put a line through that. All that matters is that when I look up he's looking at the same stars that I am, and that the moon is the same moon wherever I go on this land of earth and water.

I remember a lot of things. That's not the point. The things that matter are things that I'll never let myself forget.

My name is Lily. I am nineteen years old. I have red hair and hazel eyes. I love the same boy that told me what stars are made of.


End file.
